


The Giants of the Prairies

by lollard



Category: Deadwood, Golden Girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lollard/pseuds/lollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end of the St. Olaf Heritage Trail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Giants of the Prairies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lunabee34 (Lorraine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/gifts).



> As an FYI/extra warning: this story takes place in the present day, with the girls approximately in their late seventies, and Sophia Petrillo has passed. More at the end!

Three old women in a red Cadillac DTS.

They make the crossing at US 85 in North Dakota, coming south through Saskatchewan. Customs comes as a surprise to them, rising out of the farmland and through the woodland as two long, unassuming brick buildings, set at angles, on the Canadian side, and a sprawling industrial building on the American side. Still, the American agents are very nice, and when one of the agents inquires about the nature of their travel in their northern neighbor, nobody reaches for a gun when the tall one and the underdressed one exchange explosive looks and start talking over each other.

“ — _Asinine_ , officer, you wouldn’t believe it if we told you — “

“ — Cooped up in the back seat of that car for five days — “

“ — We found out _at length_ that there weren’t any Scandinavians up there — “

“ — How do you _live_ like this, when you have to stay covered up all the time?”

“ — And I was afraid to ask, officers, what this had to do with anything at all — “

“ — I mean — “ The underdressed one saunters forward, brushes a hand on the younger agent’s shoulder. “ — how do you _live_ , you know what I’m saying?”

“Blanche,” the tall one snaps. “Heel.”

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” says the third old lady, Fair Isle-sweatered and bottle-blonde under her fur hat. “It was educational. And you promised. Officers — “ She pushes her way past them. “We went to see the giant pysanky and the giant gopher and the giant wagon wheel and the giant mushroom and the giant badminton racket and the — “

“The Giants of the Prairies,” the tall one mutters, head in one hand. “We get it, Rose.”

“ — Because we’re on the St. Olaf Heritage Trail,” Rose finishes triumphantly.

The customs officers exchange looks, make sure the old ladies aren’t shipping in AK-47s or grenades or lutefisk, and send them on their way without any further questions.

***

They overnight in Dickinson, North Dakota, and Blanche is so happy to see an interstate she declares she might cry. With one glance in the rearview mirror, though, Dorothy puts paid to that notion — it’s a Dorothy Special, her glare, and it’s enough to keep Rose and Blanche quiet until they find yet another nameless, faceless, wholly interchangeable hotel just off the highway. There’s an Applebee’s next door, and they agree on that for dinner. Dorothy says she wants a nap and will meet them downstairs in an hour. Rose and Blanche disappear into their room, and Dorothy shuts her door and goes to sit on the bed.

Eight o’clock in Atlanta. She thinks. She’s not sure how the time difference works — are they Mountain or Central here? — but she picks up her phone anyway, unlocks the screen, spies the new message indicator in the corner.

_Client meeting 2night dinner + symph. Wish it was u. Talk tmrw sugar b._

“Lucas,” Dorothy murmurs, name coming out on a sigh; she’s not sure whether she’s sad because she misses him and she’s lonely, or because he refuses to stop slaughtering the English language in his text messages. Lucas Hollingsworth travels enough that he’d insisted they both get iPhones; they’re no better than a brick out here on the St. Olaf Heritage Trail.

(“The Caddy’s got all-wheel drive,” he’d said, over dinner at Mary Mac’s Tea Room, “built-in GPS — hell, we’ll get a satellite phone put in. You know Blanche and Rose can’t afford that, and if you’re going to go charging off into some godforsaken wilderness for three weeks, I want you safe.”

“Lucas, it’s Minnesota,” she said, laughing, pleased at his concern, “not Deliverance.”

Dorothy thought, once they passed the St. Olaf city limits, that she might live to regret those words.)

Still — any device that keeps Rose quiet with episodes of _Dancing With The Stars_ is a worthwhile feature to bring along. She’d made an appointment at the Apple Store to make sure she could do basic trouble-shooting on the road, to make sure she knew how to get _Dancing With The Stars_ (and, she thought a little meanly, episodes of _Sesame Street_ ), and to make sure she could show Rose how to make them start.

Dorothy stands, pulls the bedspread off the bed, and starts working off her shoes when she hears it: distant laughter. It means two things: one, the walls of this hotel are too damn thin, and two, Blanche and Rose are having fun without her.

She glances at her phone, contemplates calling Lucas anyhow, if only to make the room less quiet for thirty seconds, and then goes for the more obvious fix: she turns on the television. It’s not a large effort to tune out Brian Williams, or Blanche and Rose.

It’s funny, Dorothy thinks, that she’d want to tune them out — although maybe not; they’ve been together for the last two weeks, and that’s enough for anyone. So then why does she feel so lonely?

Bad things are happening in other parts of the world, Brian Williams says, and Dorothy figures it out just as she dozes off: it’s not Lucas, and it’s not fatigue, and it’s not too-thin walls or people having fun without her.

It’s that Ma would have had something to say about all of this, from the very start. Everything.

***

Rose is standing with her hands on her hips by the windows, watching Blanche wrangle her luggage through the door. “Come on, Blanche,” she says, “you know Dorothy said you can only have two suitcases.”

Blanche looks up in the middle of hauling something Vuitton-shaped past the ironing board and glares. “And I told you that the United Nations said that was illegal under the Geneva Convention against human rights violations, so you can just shut it, you Scandinavian nitwit, and what Dorothy doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

“How are you going to hide it?” Rose demands. “The trunk’s going to overflow and you’re going to make me ride on the roof again.”

 _Sweet Jesus_ , Blanche thinks, aiming a glance at the ceiling. “Again?”

“Well, maybe that wasn’t you, but back in St. Olaf — “

“That was a threat, honey,” Blanche says. “If you didn’t pull your head back inside the window and stop acting like a golden retriever. Nobody made you ride on the roof.”

She watches Rose’s brow furrow. “Maybe I dreamed it,” Rose says finally, unsure.

“Yes, honey.” And just like that the fight’s out of Blanche. She pushes the bag past the door, steps around it, and goes over to Rose. “Why don’t you sit for a minute, and I’ll get us a glass of water?”

Rose is getting more and more childlike by the day; Blanche wants to chalk it up to so much time spent in the car, going through endless prairie that does and doesn’t look like St. Olaf. At least St. Olaf didn’t have a big old Ukrainian Easter egg angled toward the sky like it was going to blast off. (But _The St. Olaf Heritage Trail Guidebook_ did have all the Giants of the Prairies listed in alphabetical order, not geographic order, which meant a lot of backtracking across rural Alberta, and a trip that should have taken a week is going to take three. It’s eminently obvious to anyone who looks in the guidebook that the route, like the notion of putting giant objects in every canola-growing hamlet with a post office, could only have come from the stunted mind of a denizen of St. Olaf, Minnesota.) But Blanche, stepping into the bathroom and pulling the paper from two glasses, isn’t sure it’s just the trip. Rose and Dorothy are getting up in years, after all. And even if it is just the trip — that’s scary enough, isn’t it?

Scarier, she has to admit, than the fact that she and Dorothy lost that high-stakes game of Monopoly in Atlanta last Thanksgiving, which is what they’re doing up here in the ass-end of North Dakota to begin with. But Dorothy wasn’t really trying; it was the first Thanksgiving without Sophia, and all Blanche had to do was take one look at the catered dinner to know that it wasn’t going very well. And it’s not that Lucas spills secrets, but after all, Blanche has known her uncle a hell of a lot longer than Dorothy, and some things the Hollingsworths just know. Blanche could always tell when Big Daddy was upset, and Lucas has the same tells. He’s worried about Dorothy, and as far as Blanche can see, he’s right to be. She’s not even sure Dorothy has noticed that the further down the road they get, the more Rose seems to be leaving behind.

That’s why Blanche hasn’t offered to let Rose have a room to herself for a night, to double up with Dorothy and try to stave off whatever that is in her face that makes her look like that: she’s not sure she ought to leave Rose alone. It’s hard to be a good friend sometimes, when you know that things could be better and there’s nothing you can do to fix it and so there’s no point in acknowledging the elephant in the room. They haven’t all just seen it; they’ve taken rides on it.

Really, Blanche thinks, as she comes out of the bathroom and hands Rose a glass, all things considered, she _deserves_ that third suitcase. And if Dorothy says boo to her about it, why, she’ll just tell Dorothy that it’s Rose’s, and it’s filled with that lutefisk stuff, and if Dorothy doesn’t mind her own business she’ll see to it that Rose makes her a lutefisk fruitcake for Christmas when they’re all there together in a few weeks.

***

After dinner Dorothy retires to her room, saying she’s going to try to go to bed early, and they should be down for breakfast by eight. Rose doesn’t pop a salute, but she thinks about it.

As usual, Blanche takes over the bathroom for her pre-bed rituals; that’s an hour and a half that Rose gets the TV. She feels better, having eaten something. She’ll be the first to admit that she gets a little muddled at night, especially right now when they’re on the trail. There’s just so much history — so many things she’s only heard about in stories, things important to her mother and her grandmother and her great-grandmother, and they’re all right here in front of her. Sometimes it’s all she can do not to press her nose to the window of Dorothy’s Cadillac like a little girl in a toy store. It makes it a little hard to remember what’s really happening here, now, to her, and not decades ago in a story.

She hasn’t told them that Kiersten’s husband is getting transferred from Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta, and that she’ll have to leave Miami after the first of the year. If she’s being honest, she’s afraid that Dorothy won’t react well; holidays are one thing, but she’s still convinced that Dorothy wouldn’t have left them to begin with if she hadn’t been looking for a way out for a while.

You don’t leave your family. It was hard enough to leave St. Olaf the first time, and if Kiersten hadn’t been in Fort Lauderdale she never would have done it, no matter how cold or lonely it got in the house without Charlie, but then when Dorothy left — things got bad. The hotel sold at a loss, and they sold Blanche’s house and moved into a two-bedroom condo on the beach in a new high-rise, and it just isn’t the same. There’s no history, and you can’t tell that people loved each other in there well before you got in. It makes a difference. A big one.

She’s never said as much to Blanche — Rose has a feeling that Blanche is worried about her, and Rose doesn’t want to make it worse — but it’s a place to live, not a home. So she might as well live anywhere. Even Atlanta. Even if Dorothy doesn’t want her there. Rose has her own history and if Dorothy doesn’t like that, then Dorothy can just leave her alone. At least she’ll have Blanche. Blanche will want to move to Atlanta. And they don’t need Dorothy. They’ve been getting along just fine without her.

Rose decides not to wait for Blanche to finish. God will forgive her for not brushing her teeth. She says her prayers, changes into her nightgown, takes her medication, and gets into bed. She doesn’t fall asleep right away; instead, she curls on her side and thinks about the giants of the prairies.

Her favorite might be the U.S.S. Enterprise, in Vulcan, Alberta. Blanche makes fun of her, and calls her a Trekkie, but at least the Federation wanted everybody to be a big happy family.

Dorothy’s just a big old Borg, that’s all.

(Somebody from St. Olaf named the Borg for Ingeborg Helmandsson, the man who knew too much, and couldn’t stop telling everybody about it, either, because he wanted everybody to have the same information all the time about everything. The Borg also inherited Ingeborg's fashion sense. But that’s a story for another day.)

***

Five hours’ drive south the following morning brings them to the Black Hills of South Dakota. This is the last stop on their trail; from here, it’s east on I-90 to Chicago and back south to Atlanta from there. Dorothy isn’t thinking so much about the Dakotas. Instead, she’s contemplating Chicago pizza — while it’ll never beat New York, she can appreciate it for what it is — and their planned visit to the Field Museum. Blanche, in the back seat, is adjusting her makeup in the mirror she attached to the passenger side seat with some string and a prayer, chattering away about Marshall Field’s or whatever it's called now and that _wonderful_ handsome curator at the museum who left Miami for a job at the Art Institute who told her to call just _anytime_ she happened to be in town so she hopes the girls won’t be too offended if she just slips away for the evening once they’re out of this godforsaken place and back in civilization.

Rose keeps her eyes on the pines, and stays quiet.

One last checkpoint on the St. Olaf Heritage Trail, and she can send the book back to Minnesota to get her badge and her name on the plaque, just like her mother and her grandmother. Her sisters never seemed interested — Lily just wanted to go to foreign countries, and Holly was just a backstabbing bitch, if she’s being honest — but it’s a point of pride for Rose. The girls don’t really get it, either, she knows, but she didn’t expect anything different.

It’s lonely, though, being the only one who cares. About the Giants of the Prairies. About Star Trek. About family, and friends, and where you came from. And about what losing all of it means.

That’s what’s on Rose’s mind as they come around the bend and down the hill into the town of Deadwood. She knows from the guidebook what to expect: they park, they do the walking tour down the reconstructed main thoroughfare, starting at the Widow Garrett’s home, and circling on the north side, back down to the south side, and winding up at the doctor’s place, where, the book promises, they’ll find the real meaning of St. Olaf Heritage.

Neither Dorothy nor Blanche protests at Rose being the one to hold the guidebook as they start to walk, looking at the numbers on the buildings. Previously Rose has read out the descriptions attached to each number (with aid of _The St. Olaf Heritage Trail Guidebook_ Official Decoder Ring, complete with hook to open a nice Grain Belt Beer), but this time she stays silent. Dorothy and Blanche seem to take their cues from her.

 _Nobody in their right mind_ , Blanche is thinking, _visits South Dakota in December_. Maybe that’s why it’s silent as the grave, except for the wind among the old buildings. Shadowy figures move inside the old hardware store, and Blanche shivers.

Dorothy cranes her neck to look over Rose’s shoulder, and reads: _Sol Star, an Austrian immigrant, was not the camp’s first mayor, but he was the best. In a place where everyone was an immigrant, it was possible for Star to find financial and political success — something that would have been more difficult in other parts of the United States at the time._

She knows: Ma would have had a smart remark, or a dismissive one. That it was possible to find success anywhere, no matter who you are. That that’s what America is for. That every place is special because of all the people in it, and if the Italians are the best of them, well, that’s only to be expected. The point is that it’s the ones with the brains and the butts you can bounce a quarter off of that get things done, and if they don’t get things done, the ones who work the hardest will fill in.

They keep walking down the thoroughfare, and Dorothy’s lips press together so she won’t tear up. She hasn’t been working in Atlanta — who’d hire a teacher in her late seventies with no steady employment since her divorce, and only a long track record of substitute teaching in a terrible system? And she doesn’t need to work, not with Lucas, and her volunteer and charity work is limited, considering she’s not from Atlanta — it would be so much easier if she just had the systems she had in Miami, the people who knew her, or Ma’s people skills, or even Rose’s.

 _I’m feeling sorry for myself_ , Dorothy thinks as they pass by the bank and circle down past the old theater.

“Hey,” Blanche whispers, nudging her in the side, and pointing. “It used to be _a house of ill repute_. That’s what that book said.” 

Dorothy looks down at her and raises her eyebrows.

“What? I read it while Rose was in the shower. There was a _murder_. Real grisly. They had to smuggle the women — the ones that lived? — out by night so nobody would come and get them too.” The sky, lead-gray, presses down on them, and Blanche is doing a fine job of scaring herself. She moves a little closer to Dorothy. “Who’d want to murder a bunch of prostitutes that probably didn’t even know what they were getting themselves into when they left home?”

“You can look it up on Google later, Blanche,” Dorothy says, dry and impatient, and Rose turns around and glares daggers at them both before circling around to start the other side of the thoroughfare.

Dorothy and Blanche exchange a look. “What was that for?” Blanche asks.

“I’m trying to find St. Olaf heritage, and you keep talking about loose women. Can’t you show a little respect for once in your life?”

Blanche steps back, mouth open. Dorothy: “Rose, that’s more than a little uncalled for — “

“You don’t even want to be here with us!” Rose blurts, looking more than a little like an angry fur seal with that hat on. “You don’t want to be on this trip, you didn’t want to be in Miami, you never come see us any more, and I wish you’d just tell us the truth so we can leave you alone! And when I move to Atlanta in a few months, I won’t even tell you where I’m going because you like not having any friends and you want us to be just like you. Why can’t we be as good as _Dorothy_. That’s how it’s always been. And will you just give me twenty minutes to say goodbye in peace, or do I not even get that?”

Rose storms off.

Blanche presses a hand to her chest.

Dorothy’s gaze catches on the poster-size picture of a man in mutton chops and mustache, with black, burning eyes, and a wry expression that she knows she’s seen on her own face before, usually when saying something smart to Blanche or to Rose ( _or to Ma_ , her traitor voice mentally supplies). It’s under the balcony of the Gem Saloon, and the block letters under it read _WELCOME TO DEADWOOD_.

The Gem advertises a full bar inside, with chalked specials hanging on a board just to the right of the doors.

Dorothy purses her lips, and says, “Let’s get a drink and catch up with her later.” She takes Blanche’s elbow. “Come on.”

“So much for that Minnesota nice,” Blanche manages. “My _goodness_.”

***

Rose hurries past the poster of the mean-looking man outside the Gem and doesn’t look back. Blanche talks about sex all the time; the guidebook says that man sold it.

All Rose wanted was to say goodbye to St. Olaf, Minnesota — because if she’s being honest, she’s too old for this kind of travel, she’s never going back to Minnesota again, even in the summer — and now they’ve come to a place where all people care about is money and sex and the problems in the outside world, and that’s exactly what St. Olaf _isn’t_. St. Olaf is for safety, and home, and family, where everybody knows everybody and everybody is kind.

 _That man looked like a mean Burt Reynolds_ , Rose thinks as she turns down the alley, where all the Chinese people used to be, and there, bright as day, bright as the blue spandex pants the girl wore, is the memory of that night they spent in the Miami-Dade Pre-Trial Detention Center when they were trying to meet Burt Reynolds and got picked up for prostitution and Rose talked with that nice young lady from St. Gustav who was going to go back home to try to make things right.

She stops at the outside of what used to be the meat locker and presses her hand against her eyes. It’s cold out, and she shouldn’t stop walking, but she can’t help herself. It’s what the outside world turns you into. Rose has been away from Minnesota since Charlie died, and it was bad until she found the girls, and now she has to leave them again, and Rose isn’t sure she believes in the promise that bad girls who leave can be good girls again if they just come home.

But she’s come this far. She shouldn’t stop now. She should finish what she started, and smile and apologize to the girls even if she doesn’t mean it, because that’s what good girls do. Rose takes a deep breath, and turns to look at where a pigpen used to be, and even if the guidebook says that the pigs were used for disposal of dead people, Rose feels comforted: any place with animals — even if it’s right next to a meat locker — can’t be all bad.

***

Blanche Devereaux tries to order a cosmopolitan in the Gem Saloon, and settles for a bourbon and branch, minus the branch. Dorothy’s driving; she has water.

“I just don’t know what got into her,” Blanche says.

Dorothy raises her eyebrows. “Did you miss the part where she said she was moving to Atlanta?”

It’s clear from Blanche’s expression that she did. Dorothy represses a sigh. “There’s something really wrong with Rose, isn’t there.”

“Well — she _has_ been getting a little… out of it… at the end of the day — but honey, she’s just getting so _old_ — “

“We all are,” Dorothy says, and elects to ignore Blanche’s dirty look. “But to lose her temper like that! And was it just me, or is it about things we don’t have any knowledge about? She’s keeping things to herself.”

“Well, honey.” Blanche’s gaze sharpens in a way that’s achingly familiar, and it takes Dorothy a few seconds to realize that it must be a trick she picked up from Big Daddy, because Lucas does the same thing. “Aren’t we all?” When Dorothy doesn’t respond right away, Blanche continues, “You’re not doing okay, either. That’s plain as a wart on a toad’s butt.” She leans in. “Is it Sophia?”

Dorothy’s vision blurs, and she reaches out for the napkin under her glass of water — no napkin dispensers on the tables, at the Gem Saloon — to dab at her eyes. “I just — “ Her voice cracks. “I keep thinking. What she’d say if she were here. Because we’ve never not had her on a trip like this. And I miss Lucas, and you and Rose are together all the time — “

“I know, honey, and I’m sorry.” Blanche reaches for her hand. “And I’d noticed. I did. But Rose is just so muddled after a day in the car that I didn’t want to leave her alone overnight, otherwise I would’ve asked if you wanted me to stay. I’m sorry, Dorothy, I should have said something sooner.”

“It’s fine — it is.” Dorothy sighs. “Look — if we want to make Rapid City by dark, we should find Rose and make up and get her in the car.” 

Blanche looks down at her glass and says, delicately, “Dorothy, I think that’s part of the problem. It’s real lonely in Miami these days. You thought it was bad when you were still there — but really, all we’re doing is waiting around to head to Shady Pines.” _I will not cry_ , Blanche thinks. “You’ve got Lucas, and I’m happy for you, Dorothy, I really am, because I know how happy the two of you have made each other, and Lord knows if anyone I know deserves that kind of happiness, it’s you. And I get by with my men. Rose…” Blanche shakes her head. “You remember how she got when she lost her teddy bear? We lost _you_ , Dorothy. And it’s not getting better.”

Dorothy doesn’t say anything at all.

“And all this business about her St. Olaf heritage — honey, I really do think it’s a way to… say goodbye. I guess. Because you know the only thing keeping her in Florida these days is Kiersten, and I bet you my hat that’s got something to do with all of this. So she’s leaving Miami, and she’s been there since Charlie died, and — “ Blanche shrugs, helplessly. “We could try to be a little more patient.”

And in the meantime Rose is out there in the cold. Dorothy nods, finishes her water, crumples the damp napkin. “All right.” Quietly. “You know, Blanche — if Rose really is leaving Miami — you might want to think about it — I’d have to talk to Lucas, but it’s not as though there isn’t room in the house, they just make them so _big_ on West Paces — “

Blanche’s smile, lovely and warm, lights up the Gem.

***

The very last stop on the St. Olaf Heritage Trail is the lot where the doctor’s shack used to stand. It’s the only building in Deadwood that hasn’t been faithfully rebuilt according to old maps and old pictures in the _Pioneer_. That’s because a young woman requested to put a monument there instead — a bronze monument, life-sized.  
In the middle stands a little girl, hair long, holding a doll. Holding her hands are a stately-looking woman in a bustle, and a slightly rough-looking man in a battered hat, with a beard, and a kind smile. Behind them stand a sad-looking man with a physician’s bag and a woman dressed like a man, with a bright, sweet smile.

 _The St. Olaf Heritage Trail Guidebook_ says:

>   
>  _The final stop on the St. Olaf Heritage Trail was commissioned by Miss Sofia Metz of Deadwood, formerly of St. Olaf, Minnesota. Miss Metz emigrated to South Dakota with her family in 1876. When her family chose to return to Minnesota, most of them were murdered by road agents. Sofia was the only survivor. As an orphan in a mining camp not yet annexed by the United States, she did not stand a great chance of survival. However, kind people cared for her. Depicted with Miss Metz are Mrs. Alma Garret Ellsworth of New York City and Mr. Whitney Ellsworth of Place of Unknown Origin. Behind them stand Dr. Amos Cochran, a Civil War veteran, and Miss Jane Cannery, better known as Calamity Jane, famed scout and companion to Wild Bill Hickok in his last days._
> 
> _Without these bold people from different places with different experiences, Miss Metz would not have survived for very long. She commissioned this work toward the end of her life, wishing to commemorate the bravery and kindness of her rescuers. The success of Mrs. Ellsworth’s gold claim ensured that Miss Metz would never want for anything, and when Miss Metz passed away, she left the bulk of her fortune to philanthropic causes._
> 
> _When creating the St. Olaf Heritage Trail, the committee chose this place as the end point because, better than the many dairies and giant herring statues, these “giants of the prairies”, as well as the woods and the hills, best encompass what we consider our St. Olaf heritage. In St. Olaf, we see no difference in our friends and our family, and our hearts are warm enough to make the whole wide world our community. We know that wherever we go, we can spread kindness and care, and expect the same in return. We immigrated to this country and now it is our home._
> 
> _Extend the hand of welcome and kindness wherever you go, and St. Olaf will never leave you._

Rose doesn’t have to look at the book: these words are on a plaque next to the monument.

“Her name was Sofia.” Dorothy’s voice is thickened. “And she was an immigrant, too.”

Rose turns around, surprised. Her mouth opens. Blanche comes forward, takes her hand. “You okay, honey?”

“Oh, I’m fine — “

“You’ve been crying,” Blanche says, and that’s almost enough to start Rose up again: she yelled, and Blanche is still worried about her.

“Rose, I’m sorry,” Dorothy says, taking Rose’s other hand. “I’ve just been so lonely with — with everything — “

“Oh, don’t apologize, I was the one who should have said something sooner — “

“Girls,” Blanche interrupts, “I’m real glad we’re having this touching moment out here, and I’m real glad we seem to be making up just fine, but can I point out that it’s December in South Dakota and I am going to freeze my toes off?”

“We can hash this out in the car,” Rose says, linking her arms with Blanche and Dorothy’s. “I’ve got a lot to tell you — because I _am_ moving to Atlanta, and Blanche, I know I should have told you, it’s just that I was so upset about it.”

“And I think Dorothy’s got something to tell us about that,” Blanche says, glancing at her.

Dorothy is smiling — for the first time in months, it feels like, even though she knows that’s not true. Maybe it’s just that her heart feels so much lighter.  
“Nothing’s official, but I think we might have a cause for some premature celebration in Rapid City. — only Rose, are you sure you don’t want to stay a little longer? We can, you know. If you need more time.”

Rose smiles at the hill, the pines lit from behind in the fading sunlight, needles lit with ice. “Oh, I don’t need more time. I’ve got everything I need right here.”

The crunching of their footsteps is the only sound on Deadwood’s main thoroughfare.

For a moment.

“Blanche, don’t you have some cheesecake in that little cooler in your third suitcase?”

“ _Third suitcase_?”

“Oh, it’s lutefisk fruitcake for you — “

“I’d rather have the cheesecake. Say, where’d you get lutefisk fruitcake? You didn’t pick it up in Tyler’s Landing, did you? They’ll eat _anything_ there.”

“Rose, if you shut up, you can have _all_ the cheesecake.”

“ _Third suitcase_?”

“Oh, fine, you can split it. Happy?”

Three old women in a red Cadillac DTS, over the ridge, headed home.

**Author's Note:**

> The Giants of the Prairies really exist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giants_of_the_Prairies
> 
> Though you certainly wouldn't expect it by looking at the surface of the shows, the primary narratives of the Golden Girls and Deadwood mesh very well. They're both about diverse people on the fringes who come together to make communities and found families. I like to think that the same is true for the people in the communities in the middle of North America, who are so often left out of national conversations and consciousnesses.
> 
> Happy Yuletide, Lorraine, and I hope you enjoyed this! It was such a joy to write. Thank you so much for requesting these fandoms!


End file.
